The gallery at the Oxford Arts Alliance
is reconfigured by the latest exhibit, “Architectural Sketches:
Building an Idea,” which traces ideas in transition – from
initial doodle to completed building.

Architects Todd Tully Danner, Ed Rahme
and Wayne Simpson collaborated on the show, which features their
designs printed on paper banners that hang, floor to ceiling, in the
gallery. The notebooks the panels are taken from are placed on
tables, so visitors can leaf through them. The overall effect is
walking through imagination in progress.

You'll recognize drawings for the Galer
Estate Winery building, for instance, but other projects won't be as
familiar. The notebooks and panels convey the jotted ideas and loose
concepts that are gradually refined into razor-sharp renderings that
put all the ideas in place. There is certainly as much art as science
in designing a building, and this exhibit will inspire any aspiring
designers or architects in your family. It's a chance to literally
stand in the midst of the creative process.

Don't miss the way the wall panels
spell out the title of the show, sometimes with angles of buildings
and sometimes with actual letters. The gallery display is as artfully
laid out as the architectural projects themselves. It's a very
different idea for an exhibit, and the Arts Alliance deserves credit
for setting up a show that exists purely to spark the imagination,
not sell art to shoppers.

“Architectural Sketches: Building an
Idea” is on view through Feb. 13. Gallery hours are Tuesday,
Thursday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Saturday from 11 a.m.
to 4 p.m. Visit www.oxfordart.org.